


Dressed

by sirsparklepants



Series: shoulder, fat, bone [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (not Roach), Animal Death, Cooking, Food, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsparklepants/pseuds/sirsparklepants
Summary: Jaskier gets a survivalist lesson. Geralt gets a treat.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: shoulder, fat, bone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685464
Comments: 22
Kudos: 161





	Dressed

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the offal fic I intended to write next, but sometimes shit happens. It's very much not training wheels offal. It's marked CNTW because, while it's not violent, it does contain explicit descriptions of the mercy killing and butchering of an animal, with all the attendant blood and guts. If that will upset you, you'll probably want to give this fic a miss. 
> 
> Just so there's no confusion here, sweetbreads are glandular tissue, in this case the thymus gland of a young animal. In certain time periods and cultures they're considered delicacies. 
> 
> The title is a three-way pun because I physically couldn't help myself. Thanks to Ki for editing help!

Jaskier rued the day he agreed to let Geralt give him survival training. Oh, yes, it was sensible and practical, but Jaskier had spent his entire adult life being anything but. He should have known it would end badly. Or at the very least, with their history, Geralt should have. 

The foraging lessons were a rousing success, surprising them both - but then, bards had to be observant, and Jaskier was highly motivated to be able to find wild onion and the like in the wilderness. Unlike certain lovely yet taciturn companions of his, he hadn't spent years with nothing but woodsmoke for seasoning, and he didn't intend to ever do so. And perhaps that initial success had buoyed them both with a false sense of security, because they'd snapped at each other over this tracking lesson all afternoon, until almost by accident Jaskier had stumbled across… this.

The area they were practicing in was rocky, dotted with boulders, loose rock, and sharp drop-offs ranging in height from the shoulders of a tall man to taller than a mage's tower. Why they'd chosen possibly the worst area for Jaskier to learn on, he didn't know, except that Geralt was just as dramatic as he was - or maybe worse, since he liked to cover it up with silence, dirt, and machismo, but it was still strong enough to shine through - but he'd stomped off when it was that or scream. This might not be a proper mountain and Jaskier might be a lowland boy, but he'd traveled enough to recognize shear marks, thank you, and his voice was more than powerful enough to set off a rock slide. But then he'd heard a noise of distress. 

Much as it pulled at his heartstrings, Jaskier didn't run towards it immediately, ready to be the dashing hero. Five years ago, he might have, but five years ago he hadn't seen the truly staggering number of monsters that could mimic all sorts of voices or get in a man's head when he was just trying to be forthright and noble and follow the example of his traveling companion - his example when he wasn't being a pigheaded shit, that was. Instead, with the witcher an unknown distance behind him, Jaskier began to back away carefully - minding the drop-offs but unwilling to turn his back on a potential foe - calling for Geralt as loudly as he dared, projecting instead of shouting. 

He bumped into him, quite literally as it turned out, sooner than he expected. "What?" Geralt asked, frowning. 

"I heard something," Jaskier said. "Crying, or something upset at least." 

Geralt grunted and put a hand on his sword, pushing past Jaskier and obviously listening. They didn't have to go far before he relaxed. "Goat kid," he said. "Must have gotten separated from the herd." Despite his words, he kept going forward instead of forcibly escorting Jaskier back to camp. 

Jaskier trotted forward to keep up with him. "If it's not a monster, why are we looking for it?" he asked. 

Geralt hummed and looked back at him as if the answer should be obvious. It wasn't, but Jaskier stayed with him anyway. As it turned out, where he was before was less than the length of a tourney field from the kid, still crying piteously every minute or so. It had fallen down one of the shorter overlooks, too young and not coordinated enough to leap nimbly down like its older fellows, though the drop was not quite twice Jaskier's height. Geralt peered over at it.

"Broken leg," he diagnosed, and indeed Jaskier could see the unnatural twist to the limb. "Wild, not part of some farmer's herd. Won't survive even if we could get it back to the mother." 

Jaskier felt a pang. Animals died every day, wild ones far more often and more cruelly than livestock and ones that worked with people, he knew, but this was the closest he'd come to a death like this, slow and lingering and sad. He'd been kept well away from the slaughter as a child - much too messy - and at Oxenfurt had had better things to do. "Can't we help it?" he asked Geralt, but he knew already that if they could, Geralt would have said so. 

Geralt grunted. "One way," he said, and pulled a sharp knife from his belt, one he used on game, not monsters. Jaskier swallowed, but nodded. Even he could tell it was mercy.

Geralt put the hilt between his teeth - the dramatic prick, Jaskier thought fondly - and started climbing nimbly down the rockface. When he reached the bottom, he looked up. 

"You coming?" he asked Jaskier. 

Jaskier took in a deep breath. He supposed this was a necessary skill after all. "Only if you catch me," he said. "I'm not trained in climbing like you, and I don't fancy sharing the kid's fate." 

Geralt didn't look impressed, but he put the knife back where it belonged and didn't move away. That was the best Jaskier could hope for, so he sighed, closed his eyes, and swooned like an actress playing her first romantic maiden off the side of the drop. 

He landed directly in Geralt's arms, of course, much more due to the man himself than to any nonexistent athleticism of Jaskier's. Geralt's sigh told him he'd caught Jaskier's dramatics and didn't appreciate them, but he set him on his feet rather gently nonetheless. "Roll up your sleeves," he said, and proffered the knife to Jaskier. 

Jaskier paused mid-motion. He thought that he'd be getting accustomed to an animal dying in front of him, not spilling its blood with his own two hands. That was just like Geralt, to throw him in the deep end and hope he swam. He turned to the man to say so but was caught by his eyes.

There was no judgment there. No command. No air of authority at all. Just a quiet, solemn understanding. If Jaskier couldn't do this, he had no doubt Geralt could. But that look endeavored him to try. 

Jaskier sighed and finished rolling up his sleeves. Then he took the knife and let Geralt adjust his grip from something suited for food preparation to the proper one for this. Then they both went to the kid. 

Up close, the leg looked - well, fucked, if Jaskier was being honest. He didn't know much about husbandry, but a man with that injury - a man who wasn't Geralt, that was - would be facing a lifetime of pain, if he could walk at all when it healed. It made him feel a little better about what he was about to do. Then the kid bleated again as he knelt down beside its head, and his heart seized. 

"How old is it, do you think?" he asked Geralt quietly, stroking its head. It was a wild animal and likely took no comfort from the gesture, trying to suckle at his fingers instead, but he couldn't help himself. 

Geralt leveled a look at him. "Would you feel better, knowing?" he asked. 

Jaskier winced. "Perhaps not," he said. He let the kid lip at his fingers one more time, steeled himself, and then looked to Geralt. 

"I'll hold it down," Geralt said. "You're going to slice an artery in its neck - you know how to find a pulse?"

Jaskier scoffed - he'd found Geralt's any number of times, when potions slowed his slow heart further and Jaskier had to reassure himself it still beat. Geralt nodded. "All right, same thing. Firm pressure, but not too deep. You sever the windpipe, it suffocates. This way it's quick and clean." 

"Quick and clean," Jaskier repeated, looking at the kid's throat and not its eyes. "Quick and clean. Yes, right." 

Geralt looked at him again. "You think you can do it? No sense in it suffering."

Jaskier bit his lip, but nodded. "Yes," he said. It was something he needed to learn, after all. Better to do it now than when he'd gotten himself an aversion watching Geralt do it. He put his fingers on the kid's neck, feeling for its pulse, as Geralt moved to keep it from flailing. 

It was surprisingly quick, in the end. The kid bleated one more time at the strange, confusing positioning, and then fell silent. Geralt's knife was sharp, and Jaskier had assisted in enough butchering since he began traveling with Geralt to judge the pressure well. The blood was hot where it soaked onto his hands, but Geralt moved him out of the worst of it with a quick pull to his shoulder, so his clothes were saved, at least. Jaskier watched the flow until it stopped, quick bright red slowing to a trickle. His lip was quivering, but he'd done it. The kid wasn't suffering. Jaskier resolutely swallowed back the lump in his throat. 

"Now what?" he asked Geralt, and if his voice was slightly hoarse, the witcher didn't comment. 

Geralt grunted and held his hand out for the knife. When Jaskier didn't immediately pass it over - he wasn't exactly enthused about cutting up a corpse he'd so recently made, but he'd done the worst bit already, he thought - Geralt huffed impatiently. 

"Got to be careful with this part, or you'll nick the guts and taint the meat," he said. "You'll push too hard."

"Well, how am I meant to learn then?" Jaskier asked. "The precise application of force is not exactly something one can learn visually." 

"Mm," Geralt hummed, the way he did when Jaskier had a point but he didn't want to admit it. He reached over, but not to take the knife from Jaskier by force. Instead, he wrapped his hand around Jaskier's on the hilt. "Feel it then," he said, and Jaskier scrambled to kneel next to him, never moving his hand from Geralt's grasp. 

"This one's a doeling," the witcher said, pointing at the genitals with the knife where, indeed, there was no trace of testicles. "Makes it a little easier. The prick gets in the way. Teach you to work around that later." 

Despite the tacky blood on his hands, Jaskier literally could not help himself. "My dear," he said, looking over at Geralt. "You should know by now I certainly know how to work my way around a prick." He let his eyes drift obviously to Geralt's lap. 

Geralt rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth quirked, too. "Pay attention when you've got a weapon in your hand," he said, and Jaskier snickered. 

"Always do," he said, and turned back to the doeling before he could make everything an innuendo and he climbed on Geralt's lap in the middle of this cold, rocky nowhere.

"Start with the anus," Geralt said, spreading the legs of the kid with his free hand and guiding the knife. "Did you take anatomy at Oxenfurt?" 

"No, but I did carouse with the medical students, so I do know quite a bit more than your average bard," Jaskier said, "and you're rather a walking lesson in and of yourself." 

"So you know what the colon looks like," Geralt said. 

"Ah, not personally?" said Jaskier, and swallowed. Somehow he felt that wasn't going to be true much longer. 

Geralt grunted. "It's attached to the anus, a little wider," he said, guiding the knife to about a fingers' width outside the sphincter. "Press the knife in just so deep -" perhaps two fingers' width, Jaskier felt, as they did so - "and you won't nick it. Go all the way around." His hand was firm, warm, and callused around Jaskier's, and as he let himself be guided, he found it was quite difficult to concentrate on the bloody, messy task at hand instead. 

"Now what?" he asked. 

Geralt let go of Jaskier and the knife both. Jaskier pulled back as Geralt shifted to face him. The witcher pulled the kid into his lap, its head draped over his shoulder and its legs on his, belly up. "Gotta get the head above the ass," he said, and pulled Jaskier's wrist in again, the one without the knife this time. "Feel that loose skin where the legs come together?" he asked, pressing their hands against it. 

"Yes," Jaskier said. It was almost like the scruff in pups, he thought. 

"Pinch it and pull it away from the belly," Geralt said, switching so he was grasping Jaskier's knife hand. "Then make a slit, not a big one." He pressed their joined hands in demonstratively. "There. Like that. Slide your hand up and make it a little longer." He shifted to keep the kid from slipping with his free hand, and Jaskier studied intently the contrast between the strength in his arms and the gentle precision he used to do this familiar task, even backwards and with his bard as his instrument. 

"And?" he asked, feeling a bit nervous and very bloody. 

"Stick your fingers in the hole," Geralt said, and waited out the inevitable snicker with amused patience. "Keep the skin off the flesh as much as you can and cut the knife through it, slow, until you hit resistance." He guided Jaskier through it until they both hit bone. "There's a soft place where the ribs meet the breastbone, not proper bone, so cut there," he said. "I can cut through the bone and trained hunters can too, but it dulls your knife, so don't do it. Here." He demonstrated the connection and drew the knife through that too, until they hit the neck. Then he let go of the knife and, with a casual motion, wrenched the ribcage apart so the organs could be seen. 

"I assume you'll want the liver, then," Jaskier said, his voice a little tart. He and Geralt just never would agree on the way to prepare it.

Geralt hmmed in agreement. "Heart, kidneys too," he said. "Rest of it's junk. Scatter it off the cliff for the predators." 

Jaskier made a face, entirely involuntarily. "The _kidneys_?" he asked. "Geralt, really? I know you're so devoted to the suffering hero image that you consume monster livers, but must you commit even more crimes of taste?" 

Geralt stared at him. "I've seen you eat lamb kidneys in pubs," he said. "On purpose, when they had a good stew." 

"Yes, in pubs, where they have hours to soak them and make them delightful little culinary morsels, not in the wilderness where tough is the best you can hope for!" Jaskier cried, making an aborted move to throw his hands in the air before remembering the knife. "The liver jerky is bad enough, but this? If you must get all the worst bits to save for later, at least get yourself a delicacy as well. This one looks young enough to still have good sweetbreads." 

"Kidneys are good for building the blood and injured muscle," Geralt said, frowning. "Sweetbreads are too small to be useful." 

Jaskier rolled his eyes. "Food doesn't always have to be useful, Geralt, it can just taste good," he said. "Have you ever even had a sweetbread?" 

"No," Geralt said, in a tone that suggested that the discussion was over. He should have known better to think that would stop Jaskier. 

"Wonderful," he said, just stopping himself from clapping since he was, after all, still holding a knife. "First time for everything. I am delighted to furnish you with a little morsel of luxury." 

Geralt frowned at him. "Do you know how to find the sweetbreads?" he asked, more dubiously than Jaskier thought the question deserved. 

"They're in the neck, of course," he said. "Beyond that, how hard can it be?" 

"We'll see," Geralt said. "I'll butcher it, but I'll leave you the head and neck. You want them so bad, you find them." 

What followed was a bloody, mostly tedious task involving draining blood, removing skin, and dismantling limbs at the joints. It was harder work than Geralt made it seem, too. By the time the head was free of the body, the drying blood on Jaskier's hands was pulling tight and uncomfortable, and a prickle of sweat had broken out beneath his shirt. Still, he went gamely at the neck with the knife Geralt let him use while the witcher settled in for the serious work of removing meat from bone and turning most of it into cuts they could preserve and travel with. 

"Why aren't we doing this back at camp like you normally do?" Jaskier asked, delicately peeling loose a membrane from atop the flesh. 

"Blood draws predators. You're not experienced enough to not get more blood on you," Geralt said, most of his attention on running his own knife over the ribs. 

"Are you keeping me company, my dear witcher?" Jaskier asked in delight. He looked over at Geralt and accidentally slid the knife in deeper than he'd intended. Shit. 

"Hmm," Geralt grunted, and refused to meet Jaskier's eyes. 

Jaskier didn't push him - he could do that enough when they were enjoying their dinner. Instead, he looked down, concentrating on his task. Oh, that was a sizable whitish lump, was that it? 

With some trial and error, he managed to find the edges of the lump, which was indeed the correct size and texture for a sweetbread. It got a bit… less sightly in the process, but that was all right. He knew where it was and how deep to cut now. This one could be his sweetbread, and the other Geralt's. Jaskier had had quite enough of perfect presentation and plating in his life.

"All right," he said, not looking too hard at the lovely even cuts of meat Geralt had spread carefully on a cloth. His knife skills would improve with practice. It was hardly fair to compare him to Geralt, who had sixty years, at least, of experience cutting things! "I have retrieved us a delightful treat for supper. Or after supper, perhaps." He squinted at the sky. "How late is it?"

Geralt grunted and wiped his knife clean. "Late enough to be heading back," he said, and bundled up the meat, Jaskier's two mismatched sweetbreads included.

The less said about the undignified way Geralt had to help him back up the rockface, the better. Jaskier refused to think about anything he did that was less than graceful. It simply didn't need to happen, so it didn't. Nevertheless, that meant the journey back to camp under a darkening sky had quite a number of holes in it where things just didn't happen, and enough that Jaskier was grateful that they'd gathered the wood for the night already. Their stop beside a cool mountain stream to wash up was, despite the look on Geralt's face, entirely dignified. 

While Geralt set up a spit and began to build a drying rack for the rest of their meat, Jaskier busied himself with his prize. First, of course, the sweetbreads had to be soaked. They only had the one pot and Jaskier already had plans for it, so he made do with one of the wooden bowls Geralt had carved after Jaskier had complained of not getting his fair share when the witcher had them eat from the same pot. (Most of the time, of course, Geralt tried to count on Jaskier being distracted and served himself less when food was lean, but the bowls neatly handled that problem.) Jaskier squinted at the size of the kid's leg that Geralt had just spitted. Probably when the leg was halfway cooked, the sweetbreads would be ready to be cooked. But that meant he had some work to do first. 

First he went and rummaged in the saddlebags. Before he came along the witcher had rarely bothered with seasoning his meals at all, but it had only taken a year or two, maybe three, for Jaskier to wear him down on that point. Mostly by raiding his medicinal herbs when they were close enough to a town to buy more. Now the medical herbs were firmly divided from the culinary, and Geralt watched him warily as he retrieved what he was looking for. 

He needn't have worried. Parsley root, onion, and the sole lemon he'd traded half a night's tips to buy weren't useless for healing, but other things worked better if one had them on hand. Which they did. Jaskier contemplated the cooking fat as well, but… why use it when the spitted leg occasionally dripped fat to sizzle into the fire? Instead, prizes in hand, Jaskier upturned their pot lid and suspended it carefully underneath the leg to catch the drips. It would be too hot for him to handle later, but he would figure it out, one way or another. 

He shaved bits of parsley root off in the thinnest sections he could manage while he waited, occasionally turning the spit. When he was finished, he contemplated the leg and then shaved a bit more. Geralt was busy with the salt, but the pouch was between them, so he waited until the witcher was too busy with a large cut off the ribs to stop him and stole a pinch. 

Geralt frowned at him. "That's for preservation," he said, and pushed the pouch closer to him with a foot. 

Jaskier rolled his eyes. "Just a tad won't hurt," he said, setting aside a small portion of his stolen bounty for later. The majority he mixed with the root shavings in the palm of his hand and began to rub it on the leg. 

Perhaps he'd miscalculated how long it had been since that side was over the fire, because it was uncomfortably hot under his hands. He yelped and quickly decided to finish his self appointed task faster than it really needed to be done. Jaskier pulled his hands away quickly, blowing on them theatrically. 

Geralt snorted. "A just reward," he said, looking back at his own cut of meat. 

"Just reward?" Jaskier demanded, turning the spit so he could get to the other side - though he waited a little while first. "A just reward for seasoning our dinner, bringing some joy into your life for once, is burned hands?" 

"A just reward for thievery," Geralt said. Jaskier didn't know how he could keep a straight face. "And if they are burned, you're about to burn them again."

Jaskier sighed, and looked at the roasting leg. "Some sacrifices must be made for art," he said, and braced himself for the uncomfortable heat. 

After that, it was a relief to go back to the cold mountain stream, which Geralt had pronounced both free of monsters and clean of contaminants, to get the water for the next step. His hands weren't really burned, just reddened, but the almost frigid water was still a relief. He dipped the pot and their second bowl in the water and let his palms soak for just a few moments. Then he headed back, making room on the coals for the pot and dropping the rest of his stolen salt in the water. 

He eyed the leg again. Geralt could probably - oh, he didn't know, smell the amount of raw meat left in it, but Jaskier couldn't. Still, he thought there was about half an hour left before they could eat. While he waited for his water to boil, he chopped his onion and threw it into the fat drippings to soften. 

Across the fire, Geralt had finished with the prep to dry and smoke the meat and was scraping the kid's hide loose of any remnants. He was also clearly curious about what Jaskier was doing, although he didn't want to show it. 

"It's a shame we don't have any parsnips to roast, although it's too late now, I suppose," Jaskier sighed, dropping his sweetbreads into the boiling water. 

Geralt grunted and indicated the other edge of the fire with the toe of his boot. There, partially hidden in the coals, were two parsnips, almost all the way cooked. 

Jaskier gasped. "You scamp! You little sneak! When did you do that?" 

Geralt simply smirked and spread the hide on the ground, hair down. Jaskier knew from experience that the next step involved a disgusting brain slurry, and the disgusting witcher potions had him full up on any kind of brain, truly. He looked back at his own tasks quickly. 

With his knife, he fished the sweetbreads out of the boiling water and plunged them into the bowl of frigid water. Then he gave the onions a stir and added the remaining parsley root, turning the spit while he was at it. The fragrant scent of them both was shortly rising through camp, savory and toothsome, and Jaskier inhaled, satisfied. (It, of course, also smelled like brains. But he chose to ignore that, as it was far too common a smell in his day to day life now.) 

Carefully, he patted the sweetbreads dry and then put them on the pot lid to sizzle. After a minute, he squeezed the lemon juice all over the pan and stirred up the brown bits left from the onion and fat. The sweetbreads were releasing their own juices now, too, and his stomach rumbled at the rich familiar scent. He flipped them and waited for the other sides to go crispy golden brown as well.

Geralt had finished the worst of his process and was carefully draping the hide on a branch to dry. He couldn't hide the deep inhale he took as he strode back over the fire, though. Seemed like it wouldn't be that difficult to get him to try Jaskier's treat after all. 

"I hope you're planning on washing that off," Jaskier said tartly, looking at the mess all over Geralt's bare hands. His companion grunted and took one of Jaskier's prep bowls, still full of water, and plunged his hands in, rubbing them vigorously. Jaskier sighed. He supposed it was better than nothing.

Now, how to get the pot lid off the fire now that the sweetbreads were almost done? Jaskier bit his lip. Then he spotted Geralt's gloves, abandoned next to where the man had been working. He scrambled for them. This possibly wasn't the best idea, but as long as he worked quickly, it should be all right. 

Geralt didn't stop Jaskier as he put the gloves on, although he reached out with a frown on his face when Jaskier made to plunge his hands over the fire. But by then it was too late to interrupt - a wrong move could send him tumbling into any number of hazards. Jaskier retrieved the pot lid as quick as he could, setting it down on the rocky soil and cursing with the heat. Geralt crossed the fire and grabbed his hands in his own, scowling mightily.

The leather, made to withstand monster venom and acids, among other things, was mostly fine. But it was not meant to protect against heat, and when Geralt stripped the gloves from his hands the fingers were red and tender, although not blistering. 

"You'll live," Geralt said, "though I don't know how you've reached this age, at this rate." His tone was thunderous, but his hands were gentle. 

"Why, because I'm excellent at picking my friends, of course," Jaskier said, bringing Geralt's hands to his mouth to give him an apologetic kiss. "Shall we eat? I want you to understand why I think it's worth it." 

Geralt handled plating the meat shaved off the kid's leg and the parsnips, but Jaskier insisted on dressing the sweetbreads himself, stinging hands and all. It wasn't, he insisted to Geralt, the same without the sauce. The witcher, for his part, simply tolerated his antics, the way he always did.

Finally, they were seated together. For a rustic meal in the wild, Jaskier thought it was rather indulgent, and he smiled at Geralt. "Let's see if you still think sweetbreads have no value now!" he said, fork and knife poised to carve into his meal.

Geralt, of course, carved a large bite of kid first, to spite him. Well, that wouldn't do. Jaskier set his own plate down, crossing his arms across his chest, and waited until Geralt swallowed. Then he darted forward and put his hands on Geralt's, quick as he could. His reflexes didn't stand up to a witcher's, he was well aware, but Geralt froze anyway, and Jaskier took it as the trust it was.

"Let me?" he asked softly, purposefully folding up the bombast from a few moments ago. Geralt looked at him, and then nodded.

Jaskier briefly considered guiding Geralt's utensils like the witcher had the knife earlier, but he simply didn't have the trained coordination for that kind of thing. Instead, he cut a slice of Geralt's sweetbread himself, and put it delicately in his companion's mouth.

Jaskier knew what it tasted like to his own senses: the smooth richness on the tongue, the almost-too-much concentration of savory taste, the contrasting brightness of the lemon, the way the whole thing rolled through the mouth not unlike a dark ale. But what must it taste like to Geralt? Not too gamey, not with the way he went through liver and kidney without the most basic treatment to make it more palatable. Would it be a delicacy to him, or just something to endure? Jaskier bit his lip. 

Geralt's eyes opened. He'd closed them to concentrate, and now his pupils were distinctly rounder than before. He swallowed. "Mm," he murmured, soft and pleased. 

Jaskier brightened. "So you do like it," he said, turning to his own plate again to give Geralt some privacy as he processed the new experience. 

"Not sure it's worth the trouble," Geralt said, but Jaskier could hear him slicing into the sweetbreads again, a distinctly different sound than the sawing needed for a leg roast. 

"We aren't exactly in a rush," Jaskier said, indicating the drying meats on the rack, the curing fur - they'd both need sustained attention in twelve hours or so, and they'd need smoke and heat that whole time as well. "Why not take some pleasure where you can? Misery is not a job requirement, my dear witcher." 

"Hmm," Geralt grunted, but the tone of it was odd. Jaskier turned to get a look at his expression. He had hardly moved before Geralt was leaning in, pressing a slow, appreciative kiss that tasted of sweetbread and sauce against his mouth. The witcher pulled away almost before Jaskier could respond, and went back to his meal. 

Jaskier smiled down at his plate. He knew well enough when he'd won, and occasionally - very occasionally - he could be gracious in victory. Besides, if they got into an argument, this lovely dinner they'd both worked so hard on might get cold. 

**Author's Note:**

> The parsley leaves are what I'm used to using with sweetbreads, but the root is more common in central and eastern European cookery, I hear. Otherwise it's legit, other than a not particularly necessary step I skipped. Most of the certified dumbass things Jaskier does in this fic are things I've done, because I gotta give all my disaster bisexual traits to _someone_. Forks.... may or may not be realistic? I haven't read the books so I don't know if they appear, but it makes my life easier to mention them, so they're here.
> 
> Thank you for taking a chance on a fic with tags like this one! I would apologize for the lush food and cooking descriptions but a) it's genre appropriate for both historical fiction and romance and b) I'm really not sorry.


End file.
